


wake up, face reality

by corraidhin



Category: Promare (2019)
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:28:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25314586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corraidhin/pseuds/corraidhin
Summary: A week after, Lio still dreams of voices.
Relationships: Lio Fotia & Galo Thymos, Lio Fotia/Galo Thymos
Comments: 4
Kudos: 56





	wake up, face reality

**Author's Note:**

> i have one speed and that speed is hesitant recovery and strong undefined relationships.
> 
> i watched promare at least four times and this is my attempt at getting it out of my system. writing is hard, but i hope you enjoy.

Lio shakes awake in cold sweat, gasping for air, grasping at his chest. It feels hollow, he feels hollow, his body crying for relief. Pinpricks run up and down his arms; the arms which he should no longer have. He shivers.

A glance around the still unfamiliar surroundings reveals that it's only 3 am. The face of the digital clock blinks at Lio, impassive, the only witness to his nightmares for the past week.

Can he even call them nightmares, if it's the waking up that's worse?

Echoes of laughing voices ring in his ears like a half-forgotten childhood song. He picks up the blanket he'd kicked off from the floor and wraps it around himself as he stands up from the sofa, and heads for the small balcony, the room around him dreadfully silent.

The door groans slightly as he opens it, but it shouldn't wake anyone. Lio hopes it won't, at least. 

The Burning Rescue facility features small but functional living apartments for its members. The building is packed, with Burnish having moved into the empty ones. The FDPP rarely leave for their own flats now due to the amount of work that rebuilding necessitates. All of them threw themselves into it almost immediately after the most pressing questions had been answered – questions such as _what the hell just happened_ , _where did the giant robot come from_ , and _Galo since when are we friends with the terrorists_. 

It takes time to change, but Lio hadn't given them enough credit, it seems. The least he can do is not disturb their sleep, even if he can't find his own. He's been given much without having to ask for it. It's a miracle he's not standing at trial – though there's still time for that, he supposes.

He wraps the blanket tighter around himself, staring into the moonlit sky. It's cold and the only sound is the faint whistling of wind, but the outdoors, such as it is, reminds Lio of the desert, of who _he_ was when he lived there.

The Burnish are free. He achieved what he set out to do. But the cost of it was unimaginable – not too _large_ , not anything that Lio wouldn't have given willingly, but also not something he'd ever expected to lose. He always thought that whether he won or died, he would have done so with his fire. Together. Burning until the end, one way or another.

He stares up at the stars with confused longing and almost doesn't notice the balcony door slide open.

“Hi,” Galo says unrepentantly. His hair is flattened against one side of his face. He's wearing an old FDPP t-shirt with a hole in the neck, which downgrades him from a showboasting hero to a somewhat normal person. It's supremely jarring. 

He looks about as exhausted as Lio feels.

“Why are you up,” Lio manages. He tries to not sound unkind. Galo invited him here, into his apartment, as soon as the issue became relevant, and he wouldn't take no for an answer. Lio offered a token protest, but in truth he was glad – the Burnish were his family, but even still, he'd always been the leader, always planning ahead, never living the moment, not really. And there was always the fire to keep him warm.

He'd felt hopeless, sometimes. He'd felt _invincible_. 

And now he isn't needed anymore – which is a desperate, overflowing relief, but also makes him feel-- aimless. Alone. He dreads the day the repairs are done. He can't wait for it. What will he be then?

“I'm a light sleeper,” Galo says, leaning back against the railing. He yawns and scratches the back of his neck, unselfconscious, his boisterous nature subdued by tiredness. “You woke me up.”

“Sorry,” Lio says honestly.

“Nah, don't feel bad. I wake up every time a car goes down the street. Hazards of the job, you know? Always gotta be ready.” Galo smiles at him. Lio wonders for a moment what he did to deserve it, and then remembers that Galo is like this with most people he meets. Always _on_. 

And yet, Lio's not met many people around whom he hasn't had to watch himself. It feels like a secret to be standing with Galo in old, mismatched clothes, relaxed and unwound. Despite the hollowness in Lio's chest, and the uncertainty of tomorrow, it feels precious beyond saying to be allowed such an unlikely alliance.

“I couldn't sleep,” Lio offers finally, since Galo for once doesn't seem intent on saying anything.

“Something happen?”

“No.” A pause. “Just dreams.”

“Ah.” Galo nods. Like he understands. “What are they about?” 

Lio almost laughs at the straightforwardness of him. His tongue feels thick in his mouth. He looks away into the distance where he knows the wreck of Kray's ship still remains.

“Burning,” he says finally, throat dry. He doesn't offer anything beyond that. Let Galo decide for himself what dreams he thinks Lio's been having, good or bad. Lio himself isn't sure. “Voices, sometimes,” he adds at length.

Galo hums. “Mine are usually about my family,” he says, unprompted, and then goes on further to Lio's infinite amazement. “I haven't dreamt about them in a while, though. Probably for the better. Especially now that I know what I know about Kray... It's never pleasant. Always feels like a reminder about who I couldn't save.”

Galo frowns at his feet. “Like that Burnish girl who died in the mountains. Thyma. And all those other people. All because I trusted Kray too much.”

Why would Galo volunteer this, unprompted? Lio looks at him in blank astonishment. His immediate reaction is to judge – because it is Galo's fault, the fault of his overarching optimism. But the responsibility for the most damning mistakes isn't on him, and Lio can hardly denounce Galo's tendency towards nigh indiscriminate faith in people after he benefitted from it himself.

They've known each other barely two weeks. Galo shouldn't trust him this much; Galo has other friends. It feels bizarre that Lio is the person who Galo keeps inviting into his space, over and over and over. Lio isn't inclined towards trust, and one person shouldn't be enough to fix his problems.

Except that, so far, that has proved untrue. Lio still remembers the taste of ash in his mouth, the complacent certainty that he was going to die.

And then he didn't.

Lio frees a hand from his blanket confinement and wraps it carefully around Galo's wrist, a foreign gesture of peace. “You saved me, though.” A pause. “Thank you.”

He wants to say something more, feels like he should, but Galo's sudden smile blinds him, his earlier melancholy gone. As if Lio was enough to make his doubts disappear. What a novel concept.

“And then together we saved the world! Just like I knew we would.”

“You couldn't have _known_ it.”

“But I did,” Galo insists, undeterred, and takes Lio's hand in an unshakable grip. Like a promise. “Lio de Galon at the end of the world! Together there is nothing we can't beat!”

“Idiot,” Lio chides, quiet and fond. Galo's hand is warm, but what really matters is the strength of his presence. Lio dreads the day when he will have to give it up and learn to live like normal people, alone with nothing but his own thoughts.

“And right now,” Galo goes on, “what we're going to be beating is not sleeping! Come on.”

And he tugs Lio back inside the apartment, straight into his bedroom.

“The couch is that way,” Lio says, confused.

“You're cold, right?” Galo nods at his blanket. “And I figured, being alone after a nightmare isn't really the best. Also, you can't sleep on the couch if you're gonna be living here.”

“I already live here.”

“Yeah, but I meant like, permanently. Unless you don't want to.”

“No. No, it's fine. If you really... don't mind.”

“Great! But there isn't really room for more than one bed, so we're gonna have to fit on one.”

Lio stares at him. Galo is still holding his hand, the single point of contact like a bonfire.

Even Galo can't possibly be this oblivious. He can't _not_ know that all of what he just said sounds like the most backwards, smoothest, obnoxious come-on ever. 

Lio is glad for it. Galo seems to have a talent for framing even the most ridiculous of things in simple and unfailingly logical terms, if one refuses to analyze them too much. He can't fight well if his armor isn't cool. The world won't end because he won't let it. He'll bring Lio back from the dead because anything else is unacceptable. 

It's a philosophy Lio knows very well. To him, too, giving up is a foreign concept.

“Okay,” he says, not letting himself think about what it is he's doing.

“Okay!” Galo repeats. His voice sounds slightly higher than usual. Lio can't quite make out the expression on his face. “Sleep attempt number two: here we go!”

It's deeply, viscerally awkward at first. They lie down next to each other like two corpses in neighboring coffins. Minutes tick by miserably. Lio stares at the ceiling, trying not to hope for it exploding into purple flame.

“Hey, Galo?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you ever regret anything?”

For a while there's nothing but silence. “Not really,” Galo says eventually. “Of course there's stuff I wish had gone differently, but I don't really think about it that much. Can't really complain, you know? My life's good, my friends are great.” He turns his head sideways to look at Lio. “And I got to meet you! You're the first person to really get me, you know?” he adds, like a secret. “You never give up, no matter what anyone says. You've got this unflinching resolve. So I know you'll be okay, even if it doesn't feel like it now.”

Lio looks at him, at his wide honest face he can't quite see in the dark. It's odd to remember that Galo never had any powers. It feels like he should have. It feels like he couldn't possibly have survived everything he did without the flames. 

Lio holds out his fist in a silent offering. 

Galo bumps his own against it. “Lio de Galon.”

“Galo the Lion,” Lio echoes quietly. It feels like a promise.

Whatever comes tomorrow, he hopes they face it together.


End file.
